Black Love Oracle Day #5: open poem to those who rather we not read…or breathe #whateverwhenever #blacklivesmatter

“All I want to knowfor my own protectionis are we capableof whateverwhenever.”

Essex Hemphill “For My Own Protection”

The #whateverwhenever oracle is Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind‘s offering to the #blacklivesmatter ride, a national movement in solidarity with young black people in Ferguson, Missouri with a vision towards a just society within which black life is cherished. Today’s poem is Suheir Hammad’s “open poem to those who rather we not read…or breathe” from her collection Born Palestinian, Born Black. To activate the oracle, choose a letter of the alphabet (your initials? the initials of a loved one? a letter that is speaking to you..) and read the poem for that letter aloud to yourself. If you happen to choose a letter that has no words in the original poem you get to make your own poem using only words that begin with that letter of the alphabet.